


Rey Finds Ben Tied to a Tree (and the Multiverse Laughs)

by radioactivesaltghoul



Series: salt versus the multiverse [3]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon Compliant, F/M, Magic, Multiverse, No Pregnancy, Safe to Read if You're Triggered by Pregnancy, Witchcraft, ben is just horny for rey, in which i yet again fuck with the multiverse, rey is lowkey horny for murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:42:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24378190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radioactivesaltghoul/pseuds/radioactivesaltghoul
Summary: Something goes very wrong in the aftermath of the battle on Exegol, leaving Rey alone in the midst of a crumbling citadel. Elsewhere in the multiverse, a powerful witch by the name of Ben Solo makes a grave mistake when trying to leave First Order Operations, and the multiverse rearranges the tiles in an attempt to sort itself out.One minute, Ben’s kissing Rey on Exegol; the next, he’s waking up in a completely alien universe.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: salt versus the multiverse [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1760497
Comments: 58
Kudos: 57
Collections: Reylo After Dark's Prompt Gangbang: Rey Finds Ben Tied to a Tree, Reylo Hidden Gems





	1. A Rude Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for a challenge where everyone was given the same prompt to write, the prompt being "Rey finds Ben tied to a tree." (clearly, i'm struggling with title creativity right now.) me being me, i decided to take sw canon and a modern au and mess around with them, so this is TROS-compliant but it's also primarily a modern au.  
> 

_He can feel the life force flowing between them._ Rey, _he thinks._ Rey, come back. Come back to me.

Please.

_The moment he catches her is instant, and he puts everything he has into bringing her back. The look on her face when she opens her eyes again fills him with a light he wasn’t sure he still had._

_“Ben,” she whispers, placing her hand on his cheek._

_There’s a moment where he’s worried he’s misinterpreted her intentions, but it’s shattered when she leans him and kisses him._

_It’s everything he’s ever wanted. It’s obvious that Rey has no idea what she’s doing; she’s mashing her lips against his with no finesse, but that makes it all the more beautiful. Every atom in his body is screaming about how right this feels, and he feels like he wouldn’t be surprised if they suddenly started floating with how much passion is rushing between them right now._

_He’s suddenly lightheaded, probably because he needs to breathe. He pulls back, trying to clear his head. The last thing he sees is Rey’s smile, and then everything goes dark._

* * *

The sound of engines rumbling pulled him back to consciousness. His eyes flew open to see two large, muscular people dressed in heavy black clothing staring down at him from where he was laying on the ground.

Not great, considering he had no idea who he was, where he was, or why he was laying on the ground.

“Well, well, well,” one of them said while the other smirked. “If it isn’t Kylo Ren.”

 _Kylo Ren._ The name sparked something familiar, but he wasn’t sure it belonged to him.

“Though you could blow up our coven and get away with it, did you?” the second person—a woman, by the sound of her voice—said.

The man who didn’t think his name was Kylo Ren felt like there was something strangely familiar about this scenario, although he couldn’t put his finger on what. “Well, did I?” he asked. Responding to threats with snark was probably not wise, but his need to blunder through this with sarcasm was too strong to resist.

The two speakers exchanged glances. “You really think you’re in a position to talk to the Knights of Ren like that?” the first one said.

The Knights of Ren. That also sounded familiar, although these speakers were not what he expected to see associated with that name. “Obviously I do,” he shot back.

“Fuck you, Kylo,” the woman spat. “You no longer deserve to call yourself ‘Ren.’”

He still wasn’t certain that his name was Kylo, but it didn’t seem worth the effort to point that out.

The other Knight called out to someone out of not-Kylo’s line of view, which was the point at which he realized they weren’t alone.

Well, fine. He’d taken on a group like this not so long ago. He—

“Oh, kriff,” Ben said as the memories came crashing back into him just in time to get kicked in the head.

When he woke up for the second time, he was in considerably more pain than he had been the first time, and he was tied to a tree. “For Force’s sake,” he growled, struggling against the bonds. He was tied tightly enough that there was no wiggle room, nor could he easily get his hands free.

This was fine. He’d been in worse scenarios. All he had to do was reach out with the Force, and—

And nothing. When he attempted to call out to the mysterious power binding the galaxy together, it was completely devoid of life.

Ben began to panic for real now. The last thing he remembered before waking up tied to a tree was getting kicked in the head by something resembling the Knights of Ren but also...not, and the last thing he remembered before _that_ was kissing Rey shortly before blacking out.

He hoped she wasn't too worried about him. Wait. No. That wasn't quite right. He hoped that she was worried about him because it meant that she did care about him despite all other appearances, but he hoped that she wasn't, like, wallowing in self-pity about it. Because that was exactly what he would have done, had the roles been reversed.

Kriff. Whatever kind of tree he was tied to had really rough bark that scraped against him when he struggled against the chains. Even worse, he had no way of telling where he was or how likely it was that someone would come find him.

It took all of half an hour before he decided that screaming for help might be productive. Ten minutes after that, his vocal chords were in pain and no one had come by. Ben was beginning to lose all hope. He'd hit the point of being so exhausted he was nodding off while tied to a tree when he heard a beautifully familiar voice.

"Ben? Oh my god, what happened?"

That was enough to snap him into wakefulness. "Rey?" he said, hardly able to believe his ears. “Why can’t I feel you in the Force?”

Then again, he couldn't feel _anything_ in the Force. Maybe he'd burned himself out trying to bring her back. That still didn't explain the tree thing, though. Or why the thought of being tied up by Rey sent a jolt of nerves flooding through his body.

 _Not now, boner_.

"Oh, thank Christ," Rey said as she came crashing through the woods, holding a knife. Ben's gut reaction was to flinch—it wasn't like it would have been the first time she'd sliced him open—but she went immediately for the chains binding him in place. He wasn't sure what use a knife would be against metal chains, but when she touched it to one of the links, he saw the glint of markings on the blade. She muttered a few syllables that he didn't understand, and then the chains vanished.

Oh. So it was a magic knife, then. Maybe that dagger she’d found on Pasaana did have special powers, after all.

"I was so worried about you," Rey said, patting him down as if needing to reassure herself that he was okay. He could easily have told her he was fine, but damned if he was going to ruin the opportunity to let her touch him. "I knew something had happened because all of our security charms started splintering, but I—oh." She stepped back, frowning at him.

"What is it?" he asked, willing himself not to blush under her scrutiny. A moment later, he understood.

"You're not Rey," he said at the same time that she said, "You're not Ben."

They stared at each other, confused. Then Rey sighed and turned to leave. "I think you should probably come with me," she told him, "so that we can figure out what the hell is going on."

* * *

After unchaining him from the tree, Weird Rey (as he’d decided to think of her) led him back to a road paved with some sort of hard, rocky, dark grey duracrete. "I had to put out a locator spell for you," she said. "I thought it seemed a little funny when it locked on to you, but I figured it was simply nerves. You—I mean, the you that I was expecting to find—were going to officially leave First Order Operations today. We were worried that they wouldn't take your departure well."

"That may explain the rude awakening," he said, rubbing his head. Weird Rey hadn't known what bacta was, but she had something to help with the pain after he explained how he'd woken up the first time, glossing over the part where the last thing he remembered before appearing in this foreign universe was kissing her.

Weird Rey paused, then turned around to inspect him. She wore her hair in three buns, just like his Rey did, but she was dressed in a completely alien style of clothing. She was wearing trousers in some sort of dark fabric that clung very tightly to her curves, something that had not gone unnoticed by Ben, with an olive-green jacket and black boots. He wanted to know if he looked like the Ben she was used to seeing, but that wasn't the most pressing concern at the moment.

At least he was fully-clothed, even if he was still dressed in the dirty, battered clothing he’d been wearing in the fight on Exegol. Complete with the hole where Rey had stabbed him and everything.

Weird Rey led him to a wheeled transport made of durasteel and glass, then instructed him to get in. "I'm bringing you home," she explained when he asked about their destination. "Get in the car, Ben."

They were silent for a few minutes. It was unclear if driving required one’s full concentration, given the simplicity of the controls. Then, Rey broke the silence with a simple statement. “You’re in the wrong universe.”

"You're saying that I somehow fell through time and space and came out in a different universe?" Ben said, hardly able to believe the words were coming out of his mouth. “The Force can’t do that. It wouldn’t split us up like that.” Even as he said it, the doubts started piling up. They had just pulled off a feat that the galaxy had never seen before. Maybe the Force, in its need for balance, was angry that they’d killed off all the Sith.

If that were the case, this was a weird way to punish them.

"How else do you explain this?" Weird Rey retorted. "I've never heard of this Force thing, nor have we ever been able to read each other's minds."

"That's not how the Force works," he said, trying to cover the hurt he felt at the thought of not sharing a soul with Rey. "You're not at war with the First Order? Or the Final Order?"

Weird Rey shook her head. "There's a company called the First Order Operations that Ben—my Ben—used to work for, but he just left them to work with Resistance Technologies with me."

It sounded like it wasn't too far off from what he was used to. "And the two of you, are you..." he started to ask. He wasn't sure how to finish the question; it wasn't like he even really knew where things stood between him and his Rey.

Weird Rey seemed to get what he was trying to say, because she turned red and made a show of adjusting one of the dials in the car. "Uh, I mean, we're—no?"

Ben raised an eyebrow. "You don't sound very certain of that."

"Shut up.”

He was tempted to tease her about it, but considering how much time and energy he’d put into pretending he didn’t have feelings for his Rey, it seemed rude to bring it up when she clearly didn’t want to discuss it.

The whole situation felt so surreal that he’d have worried it was a dream, except that even in his dreams he could always sense Rey in the Force. Even before he’d met her, a part of him had known she was out there in the galaxy. The side effect of being one half of a Force dyad, he supposed.

Neither of them said another word until they were in Weird Rey’s apartment. "I have no idea why my locator spell found you but not my Ben,” she said. “I need to set up a more thorough one, only—" She paused, grimacing slightly.

"What is it?" he asked, wanting to help her out even if she wasn't his Rey.

She sighed. "My spells are always stronger if I do them with Ben. Our magics play off of each other, you see."

Ben nodded. "That sounds similar to what I have with my Rey. You think you can't do the spell without him?"

Weird Rey took offense to the implication that she wasn't strong enough to work alone. "Of course not," she snapped. "I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself. I found you, didn't I?" The heat faded from her tone when she added, "I'm afraid that if I try another basic locator spell, it'll just point towards you, defeating the whole purpose of using a spell to find my Ben."

It occurred to Ben suddenly that he may have switched places with himself, which meant that the Ben who was supposed to be here was back in his universe, kissing his Rey. Feeling jealous of himself was something he never thought he'd experience.

(If the other him had any sense, he'd get himself and Rey off of Exegol before the whole thing imploded. Stars, he hoped they were okay, even if the other Ben was the one kissing his Rey.)

They sat at Weird Rey's kitchen table, drinking iced tea that she’d poured from a cold container in her kitchen. Ben was at a loss for ideas; Weird Rey seemed to be as well. "Is there anyone we can ask for help?" he suggested. Depending on how closely things paralleled here with his own universe, he was a little afraid of the answer.

Oh, kriff. Was his family alive here?

Something in his expression must have betrayed his thoughts, because Weird Rey asked, "Why, who would you ask for help if we were in your universe?"

"No one," he said quietly. "There's no one left to ask for help. Aside from the Force ghosts, but fuck knows if they'd bother unless it was to give us some cryptic advice." They hadn't certainly bothered to help him and Rey on Exegol.

Come to think of it, maybe Luke had been lying every time he mentioned training with the Force ghost of his old teachers. Maybe Force ghosts were even more of a myth than Force dyads.

“Ghosts don’t exist here,” Weird Rey said. “But Maz might have an idea of how to help us.”

Ben was relieved that she wasn’t planning on asking an alternate version of his relatives. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle seeing Luke, Leia, or Han—oh kriff, _Han_ —alive and well again. With any luck, this universe’s Ben and Weird Rey didn’t have anything to do with his relatives. He wasn’t sure how he’d go about explaining why he had no living relatives in his home universe.

He’d met Maz Kanata once when he was a teenager, tagging along on one of Han's smuggling runs. At the time, Ben had been thrilled to be allowed in on something illicit (after all, they couldn't let then-Senator Leia Organa know they were breaking the law), but he hadn't known what to think when he'd met the pirate queen on Takodana.

Fifteen years later, when he'd gone to Takodana in search of a droid, he'd completely forgotten that he'd ever been there at all.

"Maz is the head of our coven," Weird Rey explained as they drove to another part of the small city she lived in. (He hated the car. He was already homesick for his own universe, with its efficient transports that didn't give him motion sickness, but there wasn’t any other transportation option.) "Officially, she just runs a bar, but she's involved in some Resistance Technology work behind-the-scenes. We work to blend technology and magic so that we can help provide tools for those who aren't magically gifted as we are. Ben and I are powerful witches, but Maz has been around for...well, I don't even know. Nobody knows how old she is."

Ben wasn't sure what to make of that. "There's a Maz Kanata in my universe, but she isn't human."

"She's not? Then what is she?"

"A pirate queen. I'm not sure. I've only met her once, and it didn't seem polite to ask what her species was."

Weird Rey snorted. "Are there a lot of different species where you're from?"

He'd told her he was from a galaxy where interplanetary travel was as simple as the way she drove around in a car, but he hadn't been sure what else to say about it. "I guess so," he told her. "I've never really thought about it. I've spent most of the last few years of my life living among humans—" No need to mention Snoke "—and it's not considered polite to ask what someone is."

"That’s so strange," Weird Rey said. "I think I'd love to see your universe. It sounds fascinating, being able to travel among the stars."

"Are you not capable of space travel?”

"The government has some satellites orbiting the planet, and we've sent more satellites out into the galaxy, but nowhere near what you're talking about."

"You can't use your magic to help with that?" 

She shook her head. "Magic doesn't work like that. Although..." Her gaze flicked towards him before turning back to the road. "Maybe we're capable of working magic that can transport people across the multiverse."

"You think that's what happened?" Ben asked.

"I don't know," Weird Rey said as she stopped the car in front of an old building that stood next to a large patch of dirt containing a number of empty cars. It didn’t look anything like the bars Ben had visited, but then again, he’d never had the opportunity to go to many. "But we're here. Maybe Maz can help."

Ben followed Weird Rey out of the car, examining the building for traces of Maz's castle on Takodana.

Oh stars. The castle that he was responsible for destroying. Kriff. Well, with any luck, this Ben hadn't done anything to parallel that action.

"Are you coming?" Weird Rey called back when she was halfway down the narrow path leading up to the building. He nodded, jogging to catch up to her.

He didn’t miss the concerned glance she threw his way before knocking on the door, but they didn’t have to wait long for Maz to answer it.

“Oh, and by the way,” Weird Rey whispered as the door creaked open. “The last time you were here, you sorta burned down half the place, so you may want to let me do the talking.”

Of kriffing course. Even in another universe, he brought destruction wherever he went.

Wonderful.


	2. A Spell Gone Wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Weird Rey and Space Ben pay a visit to a wise old witch who runs a bar.

Rey hadn’t said anything to Space Ben (her private nickname for him), but she had serious doubts about her ability to unfuck the multiverse to send him home and get her Ben back.

Coincidentally, the first time Rey had met Ben was in a fight at this very bar the same night he’d burned half of it down. He’d gone storming in with some First Order Operations goons in search of a USB drive containing code and spells that both First Order Operations and Resistance Technologies had been after. Rey, who had been completely unaware of her own magical gift at the time, had stumbled upon the drive while working for the Best Buy Geek Squad. She and Ben hadn’t gotten along at first, but it quickly became clear that they were drawn to one another in a way neither of them had been able to resist. Listening to this strange Ben talk about the “Force bond” he had with his Rey made her wonder if the magical connection she had with her Ben was similar.

Hell, it was easy to let herself pretend that this was some elaborate prank on Ben’s part. This sort of prank wasn’t his style, but it was easier to pretend he’d suddenly developed a sense of humor than it was to consider the idea that she was stuck with Space Ben for good.

Although...before they left for Maz’s, she’d made Space Ben take a shower and change out of the rags he’d shown up in. Fortunately, she had some of Ben’s clothing laying around; he occasionally spent the night passed out on her couch when they had particularly grueling spells to cast, so he’d taken to leaving a spare change of clothes at her place. She wasn’t _trying_ to peep on Space Ben, per say, but she certainly hadn’t made it a point to look away when he’d asked her to show him how the shower (or “fresher,” as he called it) worked. He’d already stripped down to his underwear and Rey hadn’t been able to pass on the opportunity to check him out, comparing him to her Ben.

Space Ben had a lot more scars than Ben did. She was afraid to ask where they came from; she was even more afraid to ask if Space Rey knew about them.

Rey had worried that seeing Space Ben in her Ben’s clothing would make the situation feel worse, but it actually had the opposite effect. She could almost forget that anything was wrong at all when he was standing still. (Space Ben’s gait didn’t match Ben’s; Rey assumed it was because Space Ben had never worn jeans before. She’d barely contained her laughter, watching him pace around awkwardly after he got out of the shower.) 

He hadn’t given many details about the universe he’d come from aside from that stuff about a war and something called “the Force” (which sounded a lot like magic to her, even though he insisted otherwise). She’d caught him giving her strange looks out of the corner of her eye a few times, but she wasn’t sure how to confront him about it. And anyway, it was highly likely that she kept giving him the same looks. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she and her Ben were locked in a stalemate over who was going to be the first one to acknowledge the tension between them. She just hadn’t realized it until he disappeared, leaving a stranger in his place.

She probably should have given Space Ben more warning about what he’d done to Maz’s bar the last time he was here. Judging from his reaction, he hadn’t expected anything different, making her wonder what the hell he’d been up to in his universe prior to ending up in hers.

But there was no time to linger on that right now. Not when they were pushing their way through the entrance to the bar, searching for the witch who ran the place. “She might be behind the bar,” Rey whispered to Space Ben, tugging his sleeve. “Let’s try to find her before she—”

“Ben Solo!”

The sound of Maz’s voice ringing out silenced the entire bar long enough for her to make her way across the crowded floor. “You owe me a new liquor collection,” the witch said, glaring up at him. “Stuff’s flammable, you know.”

“I—” Space Ben seemed to be at a loss for words. Rey coughed to hide the laughter she couldn’t quite contain at the sight of him flinching against the ire of a woman half his size.

Maz held her glare for a second longer, then she caught onto the situation. “You’re not from around here, are you?” she asked Space Ben.

His gaze flicked to Rey for a moment before returning to Maz. “I’m not, no,” he replied. “Can you help me get home?”

“Come on,” Maz said, turning back towards the bar. “This sounds like a conversation better had in private.”

Maz led them to a back room full of boxes of liquor, then locked the door behind them. “What did you do?” she asked Rey.

“Me?” Rey replied. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Well, I don’t think he’s responsible for this,” Maz said, waving at Space Ben. “I can’t feel a lick of magical ability from him.”

“The Force isn’t _magic_ ,” Space Ben snapped at the same time that Rey replied, “I think it is Ben’s fault.” They glared at each other long enough for Rey to catch a glimpse of the heat that she only felt when she was deep in an argument with her Ben.

Damn. She low-key wanted to kiss him, simply because she was angry at her own Ben for not being here instead. _If we can put them back where they belong,_ she promised herself, _you can give your Ben all the angry kisses you want._

(She wanted plenty of non-angry kisses, of course, but there was something undeniably hot about angry sex.)

“The Force is space magic,” Rey explained to Maz, ignoring Space Ben’s attempts to explain otherwise. “Because this Ben is from space, and we have no idea why he’s here or where my Ben is.”

Maz sighed, muttering something that Rey didn’t quite catch. She sneaked a glimpse at Space Ben’s expression, trying to gauge his reaction. It didn’t tell her much, leading her to wonder how unnerving it must be to see a human version of a non-human being from his universe.

If they weren’t in such a hurry to fix the multiverse, she’d force him to sit down and tell her all about the tech used in his universe. Surely there was something new she could reverse engineer based on technologies he used every day.

“You,” Maz said suddenly, “are all idiots. I will help, but I can only do so much, and the only reason I’m even prepared to help at all is that I noticed a disturbance earlier today. It broke a few of my more sensitive spells, so it’s also in my interests to get our Ben back so that I can make him fix the things he broke.”

Uh-oh. “What kind of disturbance?” Rey asked.

“Ben hadn’t left First Order Operations yet, had he?” Maz asked.

“Today,” she replied, the pieces starting to come together. “The plan was to leave today. I told him to be careful, but he said he had it all taken care of.” Leonard Snoke, the CEO of FOO and Ben’s boss, wasn’t the type of person to take the departure of his most trusted employee and witch well. According to Ben, if Snoke so much got a whiff of disloyalty from any subject, the consequences were dire.

Which meant that the consequences for Ben leaving would be catastrophic if they didn’t take precautions.

“We worked multiple protection spells together in preparation for it,” she said, racking her brain for what Ben could possibly have done without her. “But we worked _together_ on those so that they’d be too powerful for Snoke to tear down.”

Space Ben jolted at the sound of Snoke’s name. “You have—There’s a Snoke here? And he’s alive?”

If Rey hadn’t known any better, she’d have said he sounded terrified. “That name means something to you?” she asked.

“He was my master,” Space Ben replied. “He told me to kill Rey. I killed him instead and became the Supreme Leader of the First Order.”

Rey shivered. Ben had done some gruesome things while in Snoke’s employ, she knew, but she didn’t think he’d actually murdered anyone. As far as she knew, Leonard Snoke had never ordered her head on a platter…

But if he had, what would Ben have done?

If she was being honest, she liked the thought of him killing someone so powerful for her. Given Space Ben’s use of the word “master,” his Snoke must have held more sway over him than Leonard Snoke did with her Ben. Rey was certain that her Ben would fight for her safety at all costs, but she’d never considered the possibility of him killing someone for her.

When she looked back at Space Ben, he was watching her, gauging her reaction. Was he afraid of how she’d respond to learning he was a murderer? She smiled at him, hoping that could convey as much of her reaction as was appropriate. She wouldn’t trade her Ben for anything in the multiverse, but she was definitely a little turned on by Space Ben’s devotion to Space Rey.

Someone pounded on the door, causing Space Ben and Rey to jump. Maz looked unperturbed as always, but she excused herself to go deal with whatever the bartender on duty needed her for. “You two stay here,” she said, giving them her best _do it or else_ look.

Rey and Space Ben exchanged looks. As soon as Maz had shut the door behind her, he asked, “So what now?”

“Now?” Rey glanced at the door.

“What do you think she’s going to tell us?”

She paused before answering. “She’s probably got a spell buried in a book somewhere,” she said. “Or…” She trailed, off, frowning. She could feel something calling to her.

“What is it?” Space Ben asked, giving her a concerned look.

“There’s something out there,” Rey said. She was on her feet and reaching for the door before she realized she was moving. “I need to—”

Space Ben was on his feet now, too. “Find it,” he said, finishing the sentence as he started to sense it, too. “What is it?” he asked, following her out the door. “It’s not the Force, that's for damn sure.”

Rey didn’t respond, too busy seeking out the source of whatever was calling to her. It wasn’t _literally_ calling her name, but there was something downstairs that she needed to get. She’d never been in the basement of Maz’s before—she hadn’t even been aware Maz had a basement, come to think of it—but she knew there was something down there, and all she could do was follow the trail until she found it.

“Rey?” Space Ben whispered as he followed her down the stairs into Maz’s basement. “Where are we going?”

“We have to find it,” she replied. “Don’t be afraid. I feel it, too.”

Something about those words must have meant something to him, because he stopped suddenly. Rey turned around, worried about him. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

He opened his mouth, but then decided not to say whatever was on his mind. Rey would have killed to know what he’d been about to say, but before she could ask, he muttered, “Nothing. Come on, let’s follow this thing through.”

Rey wasn’t at all surprised to find that Maz’s basement was full of boxes and crates of things placed haphazardly around the poorly-lit underground room. The part of her that had spent her childhood scrounging for junk to fix up and sell at her foster father’s pawnshop wanted to stop and poke through what had to be all sorts of buried treasure, but she couldn’t resist the call of whatever it was they were seeking out.

In the end, they found an old trunk near the back of the basement that was practically glowing. Well. Not visually, anyway. But it was clear as day that it was their end goal. Judging from Space Ben’s expression, he felt the same way. “What is it?” he whispered, almost as if he was afraid of getting caught.

Rey was too far gone to care if Maz caught them. The witch had all sorts of spells guarding the place. If they’d been able to make it this far, they were fine. Maz would catch up to them eventually. “I’m not sure,” she murmured, kneeling down to open the lid.

“Wait.”

Rey turned around at the sound of Space Ben’s voice, looking up at him. “What is that?”

He knelt down next to her, close enough that she could smell her shampoo mixed with something she assumed was space dust. Or whatever. It smelled good, even if it did smell wrong enough to make her miss her Ben even more. “Is this safe?” Space Ben asked.

“Does it matter?” she pointed out. “It’s calling to us.” When he didn’t reply, she opened the chest.

A puff of dust flew up, causing them both to sneeze. How long had Maz been holding onto this? They peered into the chest, analyzing its contents. “I think this is what we’re looking for,” Rey said, indicating a wooden wand with symbols carved all over it.

“What is it?” Space Ben asked, frowning at it.

“Don’t you have magic wands in your universe? Or Force wands?”

“What’s a wand?”

That was a no, then. “Despite common beliefs, most witches don’t use wands to help with their magic. I wonder why Maz has this in her basement and why it’s calling to us.”

“Maz is wondering the same thing,” came a voice from behind them.

Rey and Space Ben jumped to their feet, the wand momentarily forgotten. “Uh,” Space Ben said.

“Hi, Maz,” Rey said weakly. “We didn’t mean to snoop, we just—”

To her surprise, Maz laughed. “Figures that you’d find your way into that chest,” she said, crossing the dirt floor. “I’m surprised that he was the one to end up there and not your Ben.”

“What is it?” Rey asked.

“A collection of antiques I’ve been holding onto,” Maz said, pulling the wand out of the chest. “Including Anakin Skywalker’s wand.”

Rey and Space Ben exchanged astonished glances. “I didn’t know—Ben never said anything about Anakin using a wand,” she said.

Space Ben looked like he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. “I’m having the weirdest deja vu right now,” he muttered under his breath.

Rey wasn’t sure if it was meant for her ears or not, so she didn’t prod him for information. “What does this mean?” she asked Maz instead.

“It means that you need to use it to help right the multiverse,” Maz explained, handing her the wand. “I always intended for it to make its way back to Ben, but I haven’t seen him since the day he started making his way back towards the light after burning my damn bar to ash. I suppose this is the universe’s way of giving him a kick in the right direction.”

Rey’s heart did a funny thing at the idea of Maz holding onto something of Ben’s grandfather’s. Ben hadn’t said much about Anakin, but she knew that he idolized the grandfather he’d never met. The fact that his mother and uncle had been unwilling to speak much about him simply drove his natural curiosity even further, and then he’d found out the truth about Anakin’s dark side and things had quickly gone downhill with his relationship with his family from there.

“How do we use it?” Rey asked, taking the wand from Maz. “I’ve never used a wand with my magic before.”

“I’ve never been much for wand magic, either,” the witch confessed, “but magic is half instinct anyway, especially your brand of magic.”

“Right.” That wasn’t exactly reassuring, but holding the wand in her hand felt strangely familiar. She swore she could hear the echo of someone saying _These are the first steps,_ but that just as easily could have been her wistful imagination wanting to find some connection in all of this so that she could bring Ben back and send Space Ben home. “If I can figure out exactly what Ben did to cause this, the two of us can work together to reverse it.” The wand was a connection somehow. It had to be.

* * *

Rey and Space Ben hung around Maz’s long enough to have a drink. Seeing Space Ben drink an IPA for the first time was oddly charming; she’d ordered it because that was Ben’s favorite. “I assume you don’t have beer in space?” she joked.

He shrugged, taking another sip. “No, we probably do,” he said. “It’s a big galaxy. I’ve just never been one for imbibing. It wasn’t encouraged as a Jedi, and then after I…” He trailed off, then cleared his throat. “I’ve never had the opportunity, that’s all.”

She was curious as all hell about what was in that pause, but she could tell it wasn’t an open topic for discussion. “Tell me about your Rey,” she said instead. “How did you two meet?”

“It wasn’t the greatest first impression,” he said.

She grinned. “Now I’m _really_ curious.”

“I, uh.” He gave her an apologetic look, despite the fact that he’d done nothing to wrong her personally. “I kidnapped her while searching for a piece of a star map that would lead me to where Luke Skywalker was hiding.”

Rey’s jaw dropped when she realized he was serious. “Oh.”

The blush staining his cheeks was surprisingly endearing. “It was...a rough start,” he admitted. It was obvious that he was glossing over a lot, but before she could prod him for more details, he added, “But there’s always been a connection between us that we couldn’t ignore. We didn’t realize it at first, but we’re a dyad in the Force.”

“What’s a ‘dyad in the Force’?”

“Two halves of the same soul,” he explained.

“I’m not sure if that’s more romantic or intense.”

“A little of both.”

“A lot of both, sounds like.” Rey wasn’t the biggest consumer of romance, but she found that she liked the idea of having that sort of soul-deep connection with someone. She’d spent so much of her life alone until recently. It was nice to feel like there was someone else who wanted her around.

“What about you?” Space Ben asked. “I take it my counterpart never kidnapped and interrogated you.”

“Kidnapped, no. Interrogated…” She shrugged. “Remember when I said Ben burned down half this bar?”

Space Ben nodded.

“Well, that same night was the night he realized that First Order Operations wasn’t right. He came back to help put out the fire, and the two of us together put it out with a mere thought. I didn’t realize who he was at first, even though I’d caught sight of him starting the bar fight that led to the fire. When he realized what we’d done together, he...got a little intense.” She glanced at Space Ben to see him smiling at her.

“Intense, huh?”

“He accused me of being a spy, even though I’d never been involved with Resistance Technologies. I hadn’t even realized I could do magic until that night. It took us both a little while to learn to trust each other, but the truth is that we’ve never been able to keep away from each other.”

“Sounds familiar.”

There was a pause after that. Unlike previous lulls in conversation, this one didn’t feel nearly as awkward as before. There was a question she’d been wanting to ask ever since she’d mentioned Ben’s (now former) boss. Maybe they’d hit a point in their rapport where she could finally ask it. “Did you really kill Snoke for your Rey?” 

“Yes,” he said firmly. “And I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Does that scare you?”

“Not at all,” she said. “Honestly? It’s kinda hot, knowing what lengths you’d go to in order to protect your Rey.”

He looked like he didn’t know whether to laugh or not. “I...thanks?”

Her face was heating up under the weight of his gaze. It was uncanny to see such a familiar expression on a stranger’s face.

Except that he wasn’t a stranger. Not really.

“If it’s any consolation,” he said, a smirk playing on his lips, “the idea of you tying me to a tree is hot, too.”

She examined his expression. “Are you...teasing me?” she asked slowly.

He laughed. Actually _laughed._ “It’s too bad I can’t meet your Ben,” he said, taking another sip. “I’d love to know what he thinks of you.”

Rey had to look away. She started peeling off the label on her bottle for something to do. “I would, too,” she murmured. Space Ben hadn’t outright stated his feelings for Space Rey, but it was obvious that he was head-over-heels in love with her. She wanted to believe her Ben felt the same way about her, but…

Well, she’d just have to ask him for herself once they righted the multiverse.

“Come on,” she said, standing up to leave. “Let’s go home. We have a spell to cast.”


	3. Correction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Both Bens make their way back to their respective universes with their respective Reys, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Ben Solo, powerful witch and former right-hand to Leonard Snoke, had royally fucked up somehow and landed himself in some sort of spirit-wild-world. There was probably a better name for it, but it didn’t exactly come with a sign.

He’d gone on psychic journeys (that were _not_ psychedelic trips, thank you very much, he was a _professional,_ goddammit) but he’d never end up in a world like this one. Unlike his previous experiences, where he was able to use his physical body as a tether, he was physically in this place. As a result, he had no way of measuring time; there were no spells or timers set to wake him up when it was time to return to his body.

_Rey is gonna kill me,_ he thought glumly, staring out at the fog around him.

Was this the universe’s way of telling him he’d fucked up by trying to work so many spells for secrecy and protection without her help? They’d worked a number of complex spells together to protect him in his last few days at First Order Operations, but last night he’d worked himself into a panic over it and he’d decided to cast a few more. No need to let Rey know, he’d thought. She was already worried enough about him, and anyway, she’d put so much energy into the spells they’d cast together that he couldn’t bear the thought of asking her for one more favor.

Now, in the aftermath of his departure, that felt like it was much less wise than it had at the time.

“Shit.” The word was absorbed into the fog around him. It didn’t even echo, which made him feel even more wary of the setting. “I’m such a fucking idiot.”

He dug through his pockets, trying to see what he had on him that could be used to send a message to Rey. He had a few plastic-coated copper wires, a small piece of rose quartz crystal, a ballpoint pen that had leaked all over the pocket of his jeans, and his cell phone. He pulled it out and was completely unsurprised to see the _No Service_ message on it. He was certain he wasn't anywhere on Earth. The air didn't smell anything like he was used to. Too much ozone and a smell he couldn't place that put outer space in mind somehow.

"Fuck," he muttered, switching the phone off and putting it back in his pocket. He didn't have the correct materials for a cell service amplifying spell, and even if he had, what was the point of amplifying it out here?

He looked around him, squinting in hopes of making something out through the fog. When his eyes couldn't pick anything up, he picked a direction and started walking. His magic didn't include things like telepathy or unprompted psychic visions, but that didn't stop him from trying to reach out with his sixth sense to look for clues as to his whereabouts, whether it was safe or not.

Eventually, his footsteps led him to an area where the fog had cleared enough to show a large black obelisk with markings he didn't recognize on it. Considering he knew nothing about where he was, approaching it might not have been the safest move in case it was cursed, but Ben couldn't see any other options if he wanted to find answers. He slowly stepped closer to the monument, eyes scanning for any sight of magical signature that would give him any indication of what it meant.

The markings on it formed some sort of diagram, but he couldn't read any of the writing. It wasn't in any dominant language writing system, although he supposed it could have been from an Indigenous language that he'd never had the opportunity to study. But something told him that wasn't the case and that he was looking at something not of Earth origin at all. He analyzed the design, trying to place it. If anything, it looked like a computer network map. There was a bigger shape in the center with a set of markings and lines leading off of it to other smaller shapes of varying sizes and shapes.

Oh. Shit. He'd read about something like this once, although he hadn't thought it was real. He was in the center of the multiverse. The World Between Worlds, it was called.

_Fuuuuuuck._ Rey was for sure going to kill him when he got home.

"Okay, Ben," he muttered, circling the obelisk in case there was more information on the back. "Think. How do you figure out where you're from and where you need to go in a place like this?"

"Is talking to yourself a common problem-solving technique in your world?" a voice asked from behind him.

Ben whirled around, holding up his hands in preparation for the defense spell he didn't have the materials to actually cast. "Who are you?" he demanded of the shadowy figure walking out of the fog.

"You're a long way from home, Ben Solo of the Technowitch Universe," the being said, stepping out of the fog. They were close enough that Ben should have been able to see their face, but all he saw was a vaguely humanoid blur.

So he probably wasn't talking to a human, then. A spirit of some sort. "I seem to have gotten myself lost," he said. "Can you help me find the way home?"

The figure tsked. "You overshot your self-protection spell," they said. "You saved yourself, but there had to be someone in your place."

A feeling of dread grew in his stomach. "What does that mean?" he asked, afraid of the answer.

"There is another Ben Solo who is meant to be where you're standing now," the being said. "Something went wrong for him at the exact moment your miscast protection spell took hold and you swapped places. He is in your universe, recovering from the attack you were meant to sustain, and you are here, lost in the fog he is meant to wander in."

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. "Is the other Ben okay?"

"He is confused and ready to go home, but he is mostly unharmed. The question is, are you ready to go home and face the consequences of your mistakes?"

"You mean, keeping Rey out of my problems?" He'd only had her best interests at heart. Although...

If he had been in her place, he knew exactly how he would have felt about her casting powerful magic without his help. They were stronger together. Trying to call up that much power otherwise threw everything out of balance.

"I mean not asking for help when you need it," the being said. "You and Rey are bound together in every universe where you both exist. Believe what you want about destiny, Ben Solo, but your powers are linked. You both need each other."

Ben nodded slowly. "I think I'm beginning to understand," he said. "And I think I know what I need to do."

The being nodded. "Your Rey and the Ben in your place are together at this very moment, working to undo your mistake. The moment you agree to it, you will be home and the other Ben will be brought to his universe, where he belongs. Are you ready?"

"I am," he said, saying the words as if he were casting a spell with them. A moment later, the fog faded around him, and he was lying on his back on Rey's living room floor. He had barely registered the sudden change in setting before Rey’s lips met his in the most frantic kiss he’d ever experienced.

“You asshole,” she murmured when she pulled away a second later. “Don’t do that to me again.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied, still reeling with the fact that the way she’d kissed him made him feel like goddamn Sleeping Beauty. “Did it work? Is the other me gone?”

She nodded, leaning back so that he had enough room to sit up. Unlike the previous times they’d fallen out of a magic-driven hypnotic trance to find themselves in a position like this, he didn’t resist the urge to pull her into his lap. “I’m sorry,” he whispered into her ear. “Last night I panicked. Snoke found out about us and he demanded I bring you to him. I was afraid of asking you for more help casting protection spells.”

Rey rolled her eyes. “Haven’t you figured it out by now?” she said. “We’re in this together. It’s just me and you, Ben.”

“I know,” he murmured. “How can I make this up to you?”

“Well,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck, “you could start by offering to kill your former boss for me, and we can see where things go from there.”

* * *

Meanwhile, in a galaxy far, far away, a woman was spitefully burying two lightsabers in the sands of Tatooine.

These days, Rey was angry with just about everyone. After the initial rush of winning the battle on Exegol, the shock of losing Ben had set in. She’d taken it about as well as could be expected, which was to say: not at all.

Lately, she’d found herself wondering if this was her villain origin story. The only thing that stopped her from going full Palpatine was the knowledge that Ben wouldn’t have wanted that for her, and she’d be damned if she did anything to dishonor his memory.

The lightsabers, however. Luke had never said anything about his life on Tatooine; Rey had always assumed that was because there was nothing to say about it. Leia had once remarked that Luke didn’t have many happy memories of his childhood on Tatooine, and the one time they’d gone there as adults had been something of a disaster involving bounty hunters, a Hutt, and a near-miss with a Sarlacc.

Rey was just so damn angry at the sheer hypocrisy of the way they’d damned Ben for being Vader’s grandson but they’d been fine teaching Palpatine’s granddaughter how to use the Force, and she needed to do something stupid and petty about it. It wasn’t going to change anything, nor would it make up for all the ways they’d been wronged, but it _would_ make her feel a tiny bit gratified.

She wasn’t sure how long she was going to hang around Tatooine. It was probably for the best that she not be around other beings right now. She’d only end up starting a fight. No, better to let the anger bleed out alone in the desert, save for the chaotic round astromech droid who had stowed away on her ship, much to Poe’s dismay.

Or the occasional traveler. Rey was standing outside the wreckage of the Owen homestead glaring at the horizon when an old woman came tottering by with a bantha. “There’s been no one for so long,” she said, staring at Rey. “Who are you?”

It was a fair question. Not a lot of people willingly hung out in the remains of a small moisture farm that had been destroyed four decades ago. “I’m Rey,” she said, finding no need to hide her identity. There was nothing to fear in the galaxy. Not anymore.

A single name wasn’t enough for the woman, apparently. “Rey who?”

_Oh, for kriff’s sake,_ Rey thought. She forced herself to smile, an idea taking root. “Rey Skywalker,” she said boldly, waiting to see how the woman responded. Her prediction was a toss-up between recognition— _oh, wow! A hero!_ —and confusion— _I thought this was the Owen homestead, not Skywalker_ —but in the end, Rey got neither.

“Oh,” the woman said, nodding. “Don’t stay out after dark. The Sand People will get you.”

Rey felt herself deflate as she watched the woman walk away. “Well, that was anticlimactic,” she said to no one in particular. She turned away, looking out at the binary sunset. “What a load of complete and utter shit this all is.”

“I beg to differ.” She knew that voice. It had been haunting her dreams for over a year now. Wonderful. She was so far gone that she was hallucinating Ben’s voice from somewhere behind her now. “I think the binary sunset looks rather nice.”

Of all the things to hallucinate him saying. The absurdity had her in sudden hysterics, practically falling over with the force of her own laughter.

“Rey?” He sounded concerned. There were tears streaming out of her eyes now, water that she knew she couldn’t afford to lose in the desert. She’d officially gotten so sad and lonely that she was dreaming of her long-lost Force-bound partner.

A hand reached out to touch her shoulder. Rey’s scavenger-turned-Jedi instincts were just as sharp as ever; she grabbed the would-be assailant and flipped them over her shoulder before she realized what she was doing. She was autopiloting so hard that she found herself reaching for a weapon she wasn’t carrying, and then she actually looked at whoever she’d just assaulted and gasped. “ _Ben?_ ”

“Glad to see your self-defense skills haven’t gotten rusty in post-war life,” he deadpanned.

Rey was frozen in place as she pinned him down, unable to believe what was happening. “What—I—you—”

“I’m here, Rey,” he murmured, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “And I’m not going anywhere without you ever again.”

She practically flopped down on top of him, pressing her lips to his in a completely undignified manner with zero regards for how much sand was going to be covering them if they kept this up. Ben, who was never one to be outdone, wrapped his arms around her so tightly that she could barely breathe.

Or maybe she was just forgetting to breathe due to the kissing. It was difficult to tell.

Eventually, however, they had to come up for air, and Rey also needed a lot of answers. “What the kriff happened?” she asked as soon as they caught their breath. She hadn’t moved from where she was lying on top of him, nor had he relaxed his grip on her waist.

He huffed a soft laugh. Stars, she loved his smile. She was going to do everything in her power to elicit as many of those as possible, she decided. “You’re never going to believe this,” he told her. “I somehow managed to wind up in another universe.”

That had Rey scrambling off of him. “You _what_? Why the hell would the Force do that?” Because of course it was the kriffing Force. What else could it have been?

He pushed himself to his feet, then took her hands in his. “I’d love to tell you all about it,” he said, “but can we go somewhere else first? I hate sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating.”

“Of course.” She led him to her ship, reeling with the sudden knowledge that Ben was alive and unharmed.

As soon as the ship’s ramp closed behind them, Rey turned to Ben to ask him a question. Before she could get a word out, he grabbed her by the face and tugged her in to kiss her again. Not that she had any objections to being kissed senseless by him, but they had some things to discuss. When he pulled away, it was to whisper, “I love you.”

Rey’s heart melted. “I know,” she replied.

“I didn’t mean to vanish, I swear, and clearly you and the other me got out of Palpatine’s fortress before—”

“Wait,” she said. “The other you?”

He faltered. “Another Ben didn’t come here in my place?” he asked.

Rey couldn’t have said which was worse, the idea of having the wrong Ben, or not having him at all. “I was alone,” she said quietly.

He looked so guilty at the thought of abandoning her—however unintentionally—that it broke her heart a little bit. “But now I’m not,” she added. “Come on. We have a lot of time to make up for, and I’m not letting you go anytime soon.”

She swore she felt his heart skip a beat, which had her worried all over again, but his next words caused all rational thought to fly out of her head. “You mean, you’re going to tie me up?”

Well, now that he mentioned it…”Only if you’ll let me.”

Even if they hadn’t been bound in the Force as tightly as they were, she had no doubt she’d have been able to sense how high his arousal spiked at those words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this ended up being fluffier/less dark than planned...? anyway in case you're curious, witch!ben totally killed snoke for witch!rey, i just couldn't figure out a good way to fit that in here. i got distracted by my need to be salty about TROS.
> 
> thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! you can find me on [tumblr](https://radioactivesaltghoul.tumblr.com), [twitter](https://twitter.com/r_saltghoul), and [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/radioactivesaltghoul).


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